Sarkozy crime crackdown draws racism charge focus 08/19/2010

Sarkozy crime crackdown draws racism charge

focus 08/19/2010 PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy’s racially tinged security crackdown has begun to cause concern even within his own right-wing camp and raise fears that he has damaged France’s international image. Every day French police raid more Gypsy settlements, rounding up hundreds of foreign-born Roma for expulsion, using tactics that one member of Sarkozy’s ruling party compared to those of France’s Nazi-era collaboration. The crackdown on illegal Gypsy campsites comes alongside planned measures to strip some foreign-born criminals of their citizenship, after the government made an explicit link between immigration and crime. Sarkozy hopes such stringent tactics will restore his flagging popularity with French voters in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, but the harsh tone has raised eyebrows even among some politicians of the right. “The policy of dismantling illegal camps has taken an ugly turn,” said Jean-Pierre Grand, a lawmaker from Sarkozy’s majority UMP party, after police rounding up Gypsies were seen separating men from women and children. Grand used the loaded term “rafle” — meaning “a round-up” — to describe the raids, implicitly linking them to France’s wartime detention of Jewish citizens..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100819com7.html

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